Pledged delegates

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A pledged delegate is a delegate to a political party's presidential nominating convention that is "pledged" to support the candidate to whom they are allocated. Pledged delegates are sometimes referred to as "bound delegates," most commonly by the Republican Party. Pledged delegates are distinct from unpledged delegates, commonly referred to as "superdelegates", which are not pledged to any one particular presidential candidate.

See also: 2016 presidential nominations: calendar and delegate rules

Democratic Party pledged delegates

All Democratic Party pledged delegates must express either a presidential candidate or an uncommitted preference as a condition of election. Of these, there are three distinct types of pledged delegates:[1]

1. Pledged district delegates

Pledged district delegates are distributed and elected at a district level (usually the congressional district, but sometimes by state legislative district).

2. Pledged at-large delegates

Pledged at-large delegates are distributed and elected statewide.

3. Pledged "add on" delegates

Pledged “add-on” delegates allow for party leaders and elected officials (PLEO) to be represented. The number of such delegates is calculated by a particular formula in which the total number of both pledged district and pledged at-large delegates for a state is multiplied by 0.15. Pledged add-on delegates most often are selected in a similar manner to at-large delegates.[1]

Republican Party pledged delegates

The Republican Party has two categories of pledged delegates. The party has "bound delegates," who are obligated to support a particular candidate, and "pledged delegates" which "are from a small group of states that opted to forgo a preference vote at their caucuses or state conventions (for instance, North Dakota)." Delegates are bound only through the first convention ballot.[2] Josh Putnam of Frontloading HQ, in a February 2016 interview with The Washington Post, said of Republican pledged delegates, "the vast majority (more than 95 percent) are bound."[2]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Congressional Research Service, "The Presidential Nominating Process and the National Party Conventions, 2016: Frequently Asked Questions," December 30, 2015
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Washington Post, "Everything you need to know about delegate math in the presidential primary," February 16, 2016
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